


Lights and Shadows

by Hinotori



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinotori/pseuds/Hinotori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanamiya gets reminded why he hates the fluorescent lights at school and what exactly Imayoshi has to do with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights and Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> For those wondering, I'm not dead. My life just got taken over by gay basketball players, so I'm taking a break from SnK fanfiction (for now). I'll most likely get back to "Love in America" when my hype over this show passes. 
> 
> For now, here's some angsty Hanamiya. In all the fics that I've read, he's always this gorgeous, flawless guy. And, while I enjoy that depiction, I wanted to try something else. I like my characters with lots of internal turmoil, yes. 
> 
> Implied ImaHana, but nothing sexual. 
> 
> Enjoy~

The light in any school’s hallway is never quite _bright_ enough. Not that the one at Kirisaki Daiichi ever flickers or that it’s actually dim, no. It’s actually quite the opposite in this “elite” place. Maybe it’s just incorrect to claim that it’s exactly _brightness_ that it lacks. It would be much more accurate to say that it’s just cold, unwelcoming, casting too many shadows.

Hanamiya hated it.

He’d started hating it back in middle school, where it did quite often flicker, where the quiet buzz was ever present in the halls. But his feelings toward it weren’t provoked by those specific qualities it possessed, neither by the fact that it hurt his eyes even if he was looking down at the tiled floor (which he had all-too-often done). The lamps could tumble down to the ground for all he cared. Actually, he’d much rather they did and broke forever (hopefully crushing at least a few of the school’s attendants in the process). Ah yes, middle school had been the best time of his life.

He’d felt exposed whenever he stepped outside of the classroom and that damn light hit him. And it had always been dark outside, so looking out the windows had made it seem even more like an eternal, hellish prison of obnoxious laughter, snarky remarks and the wretched smell of gym socks and something impossible to identify, though equally as unpleasant.  Hanamiya had never needed the evening classes in order to ace his exams. He knew it, his tutors knew it, yet he had still attended. It was an excuse to not go back home, and he took every opportunity to stay away from that place, even if it had to do with something as annoying as staying at school longer than necessary (which wasn’t a much preferable place once his peers were no longer in their teachers’ field of vision). That was also his reason for joining the basketball club in the first place. Of course, he would never admit to any of this.

His main reason to hate that light was the way it fell on his face. It exaggerated his features, made his cheekbones seem sharper, the edges of his mouth appeared crueler, his cheeks – more hollow. But what he _utterly despised_ was what it did to his eyes. It made it obvious how exhausted he was, something he could usually hide with ease. But here he was completely exposed – the dark circles under his eyes were deeper, painfully evident. They didn’t even seem to naturally blend with the rest of his skin, but rather seemed like they had been painted on by a precise hand when it came to their shape, yet the colors were badly chosen, completely out of place on top of the olive of his face. The swollen vessels in his eyes were spread like cobwebs starting from the edges and sneaking their way towards his irises. The skin under eyes had gotten heavy, swollen, forming bags which could be hardly noticed during the day because he was still young, but when this light danced on him, they cast even more ugly shadows on his face. And all of this combined served the sole purpose of informing everybody exactly how little sleep the best student in their school was getting.  

They all enjoyed it too, the bastards.

And, occasionally, after something particularly _enjoyable_ had occurred at either his home or between him and other kids (he had to laugh, because he had been just a kid and so had they and all of the cruelty had been so unnecessary, so uncalled for, so innocent in comparison to what he’d probably do right now if he had the chance to get back at them for it. But Hanamiya had never felt the need for revenge).

The way he had found out how much the fluorescent light changed him had been unpleasant in itself, to say the least. He’d gone to the bathroom during practice one afternoon only to discover that the sun had already set. That had been the first time he’d played until so late with the rest of the team, so it must have been somewhere in the first months of his first year in middle school. Honestly, he’d been kind of excited about being put in their second string so quickly, with promises that, if he expanded his talent, he’d move up by the end of the year.

This was the first and possibly only thing that Hanamiya had ever been declared talented at. Intelligence and brutality did not fall in the talent category, or at least nobody acknowledged them as such.

Down the hall – the hall he’d hated the most – there was a full-body mirror. He’d been spacing out while walking, unable to focus on anything. His body had still been too weak back then to take long sessions of physical activity without resting occasionally, so he was exhausted and _starving_ and so incredibly out of it _._ His eyes had been wandering lazily over the cracks on the walls until something had interrupted the flow of evenly applied paint. If he recalled correctly, he’d actually had to muffle a scream when he caught his own reflection in that mirror. It was unbelievable - this haunted figure that caused him to stumble backwards and hit the wall with his back couldn’t have possibly been him. Yet, when he’d gotten over the initial shock, when he’d looked a little closer and had somewhat calmed himself, he could clearly see that yes, that was indeed him. He’d seemed like more of a painted figure whose sole purpose was to frighten, to drive passersby away, rather than a thirteen year old boy. Even when he’d composed himself properly and he’d slowed his racing heart, he couldn’t look away. It was chilling to the bone, yet so fascinating.

The corners of his mouth were so dark, so sharply and deeply cut. He seemed much skinnier than he’d thought he is, shoulders slouching, the T-shirt which was much too big on him uncovering too much of his left shoulder and slipping down his body, making it almost shapeless, lost in its folds. His hair appeared to be impossibly unkept and his eyes were looking up with dilated pupils from under the messy, black bangs. His thick eyebrows made his expression seem even more pitiful, curling upwards in a mixture of confusion and surprise.

Is this what he seemed like to others..?

He’d taken a step towards the mirror, then another, hand unconsciously reaching to touch the cool glass. Up-close he seemed even more terrifying, yet somehow weak, unable to command _fear_ so much as earn himself a few mocking remarks (which was not uncommon).

Even if he’d apparently not heard the screaking of the gym door, Hanamiya couldn’t have missed the voice of one of his seniors calling out to him. It had startled him enough to make him shudder, but it had also snapped him out of his trance. He’d turned around sharply, suddenly aware that all the things he’d seen in the mirror were still there, on his face, in plain sight for Imayoshi Shouichi to see. Shame had flooded him and he’d bowed his head. The silence had been so overwhelming that he was sure that the other could hear his heart struggling to burst out of his chest. Imayoshi’d said none of the offensive, mocking things the younger boy had expected him to say, but had rather walked him to the bathroom despite Makoto’s protests. His legs had been shaking so hard by the time they’d gotten there that he’d immediately run into one of the stalls and had thrown up. After that, Shouichi had helped him wash his face and had said a few short, comforting words that had meant nothing, but Hanamiya had still clung to. Words he’d never heard again and doubted he ever would, words he hated because they’d been a lie, yet he couldn’t bring himself to forget.

The two had returned to the gym as if nothing had happened, despite Makoto still being a little shaken. The outer corners of his eyes had an added splash of color – a bright red, which was his reason to excuse himself for the rest of the evening and head for the locker room. That was also the night that Imayoshi had started the long tradition of walking Hanamiya home after school or practice, usually in complete silence.

Quite some time had passed since that night, yet it still haunted him. In his dreams, in his thoughts, because of things those around him said or things he saw, places he went to. Even if now, in high school, people around him didn’t treat him the same, even if he’d learned how to take that terror written on his face and use it to his advantage, even if he’d gotten much stronger in body and mind, he still couldn’t shake the feeling. He pretended well that he’d forgotten it, managed to brush it aside when it crawled up his spine and to his ear, flooded his being and gripped at his heart, twisting it until it was hard to breathe. But he didn’t always manage.

 Still, sometimes, when he walked the school halls in the evening (even if now he didn’t feel threatened in them, but like he owned them) when he took the longest route home to postpone dealing with whatever was waiting for him there, when he briefly glanced at himself in the mirror ignoring how heavily his lids fell over his eyes, he heard it.

He felt Shouichi’s arms wrap around his shoulders from behind, felt him smile that damn smile of his and grab him by the chin, tilting his head towards the mirror with the gentlest yet cruelest motion of his fingers. He saw his face which lacked shadows next to his own, he saw the light reflect in his glasses and he heard him whisper faintly

_“you’re beautiful”_


End file.
